Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup

On the academic front, join us in congratulating our friends over at the Religion in the American West blog, who were successful in achieving group status in the American Academy of Religion. Also of interest to those readers who study the American West — the Montana Historical Society has launched a website to commemorate the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the state. Check out a detailed list of features here. Meanwhile, The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists has released the program for its forthcoming conference at UNC-Chapel Hill (March 13-16), which includes the following panel of potential interest to JI readers:

42. Uncommon Approaches to a Common Text: The Book of Mormon—A Roundtable
Chair: Elizabeth Fenton, University of Vermont
Nancy Bentley, University of Pennsylvania, “The Book of Jacob, Ancient Sexuality, and the
Poetics of Kinship”
Peter Coviello, Bowdoin College, “Lamanism in Deseret: Racial Afterlives of The Book of Mormon”
Terryl Givens, University of Richmond, “The Book of Mormon and the Reshaping of Covenant”
Paul Gutjahr, Indiana University, “A New, Scientific Edition of The Book of Mormon:
Orson Pratt’s Grand Edition of 1879”
Michael Moon, Emory University, “The Book of Mormon and Other Cosmic Dramas of
Mass Embodiment in Nineteenth-Century American Literature”
Richard Bushman, Claremont Graduate University, “Gold Plates and Enduring Words”
Respondent: Jared Hickman, Johns Hopkins University

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at IUPUI has put out its call for applications for the 2014-2016 Young Scholars in American Religion Program, led this go-round by Laurie Maffly-Kipp and Doug Winiarski. Those of you who have “launched [your] careers within the last seven years and who are working in a subfield of the area of religion in North America, broadly understood,” be sure and apply!

Futility Closet posted an interesting excerpt from Anthony Trollope’s 1872 autobiography, detailing his brief encounter with Brigham Young while visiting Utah. In other book news, a first edition Book of Mormon showed up on Antiques Roadshow. Click on over to see Ken Sanders’s appraisal of the volume.

The folks behind the cumorah.com and ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com have published a “1,900-page, two-volume, exhaustive survey” of international Mormon membership entitled Reaching the Nations: International Church Growth Almanac 2014. Peggy Fletcher Stack has the story behind the almanac and some of the authors’ findings over at the Tribune.

The New York Times reports on “Polygamy as a Lifestyle Choice” and a “reality TV brand.” In a semi-related piece, Jonathan Turley editorializes on the “‘Sister Wives’ lawsuit” in the Kennebec Journal. And last but not least, Tiger Mom and Yale Law professor Amy Chua has released a controversial new book that identifies Mormons as one of eight successful “cultural groups” (whatever that might mean) who have grasped the supposed keys to success: superiority, insecurity, and impulse control. The New York Post is less than impressed.

That’ll do it for this week. Catch anything we missed? Let us know in the comments!